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The new technology landscape can offer operating efficiencies for all sizes of business.  In the last several months, we have seen this belief reinforced by the migration of leading public and private institutions onto both the Google Apps and the Office 365 platform.

On the public sphere, we saw The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration move onto the Google for Government platform, with 25,000 seats.  UC Berkeley (50,000 seats) also migrated to Google, and told us exactly why they chose Google over Microsoft.  More recently, The All India Council for Technical Education shook hands with Microsoft executives, a deal that will move 7 million students, faculty, and staff onto the Office 365 version for education.  This is now the largest ever cloud migration.  On the private side, and from the banking industry no less, the Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, which is headquartered in Spain, recently moved 110,000 employees onto the Google Apps for Business platform.

Obviously, we are moving towards market majority who are now or will soon be leveraging the new platform for business efficiency.  Companies who are nervous about critical information will simply keep that information on their local servers.  For the day to day routine of employee collaboration and communication, the cloud based solutions are being adopted in droves.

These news items beg the question; what about the small business owner?  Can the cloud help small business operate leaner also?  My next blog post will offer an apples to apples cost analysis.

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If you are a person who is responsible for your firms’ strategic technology choices, you may want to pay attention to the discussion over TCO and cloud services. Total Cost of Ownership is a metric that seeks to understand all the factors, human and otherwise, that go into owning and operating your technology.

Most managers are pretty level headed, and tend to ask really blunt, straight forward questions like “so what?” If the executive is ambitious, the first question may be “How can my firm operate at peak capacity?”  This is an important question because it assumes that the technology is there to support mission critical business functions like customer experience.  The second and third questions might be: “how much does it cost?” and, “will I have to have to learn how to work again?”

The next question might be “what’s my liability if my information security is breached”, which you can read about in other places. The question about capacity tends to trump the cost question, and here’s why. Your success, if you are in a dynamic industry, demands that you perform at a very high level. Accountants measure things like goodwill as a way to account for reputation and brand preference. If you are planning on maintaining your position as a leading firm, or on gaining a position as a leading firm, you understand completely the necessity for smooth operations and a superior customer experience. The fundamental goal of a manager who handles technology should be to improve the bottom line through streamlined process management and education. The technology needs to support your most important assets; your clients and your employees. The costs of not doing this are counted in lost market position and missed opportunities. For some businesses, even one missed opportunity can outweigh the cost of maintaining a technology system.

That being said, the cost question is a real one. Industry reports are floating around that claim to decode the costs of technology ownership. If you have time, I’m sure you will read many of them. The bottom line is that, yes, for many types of companies a cloud based solution can save money. It saves money and it works. This is why the momentum is shifting towards the cloud brokers.

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The University of California at Berkeley just decided to move off its old email system. It chose Gmail over Microsoft’s Office 365.

Usually, the decision-making process that goes into such a choice is shrouded in secrecy. But Berkeley decided to be transparent, and published a matrix explaining the pros and cons of both solutions.

In basic terms, Cal decided it could get Google Apps up and running faster and for less money.

Read more [here].

Related articles

• Major university chooses Google Apps over Microsoft Office 365 (technolog.msnbc.msn.com)
• UC Berkeley to save $75M by using Google Apps instead of Microsoft Office 365 (venturebeat.com)
• UC Berkeley picks Google over Microsoft, talks why (electronista.com)

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Google is a household word in many places, thanks to the clean and friendly search bar.  Less well known are the many applications (apps) that are becoming increasingly powerful for home and business use.  With their recent $11.5 million donation to anti-slavery organizations, Google has moved into  a new activist landscape.

According to Google’s director of charitable giving, Jacquelline Fuller, the company chose to spotlight the issue of slavery because the topic of freedom — “the most basic of human rights,” as she puts it — resonated with company employees around the world.

Google’s efforts shine a powerful light on the new corporate ethic.  Stuart Hart, a respected author and academic at the Johnson School of Management, states that “Capitalism truly does stand at a crossroads.  The old strategies of the industrial age are no longer viable.  The time is now for the birth of a new, more inclusive form of commerce, one that lifts the entire human family…however, [the path] will be anything but smooth.  It will be a bumpy ride strewn with the remains of companies that variously dragged their feet, made promises they could not keep, bet on the wrong technology, collaborated with the wrong partners, and separated their social and business agendas.”

A hearty hurrah to Google for leading the way and staying true to their motto: Don’t Be Evil.

Kansas City Business Journal

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Date: Tuesday, December 6, 2011, 7:32am CST

The Bloch School of Management at the University of Missouri-Kansas City ranks first in innovation management research, the Kansas City Business Journal reports.

The school bested programs at 624 other universities evaluated by The Journal of Product Innovation Management. The full list will be released in March.

Read more [here].

Related articles

• Kansas City Leaders Seek to Create America’s Most Entrepreneurial City (kauffman.org)

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Aug. 1st, 2011 | Dan Berthiaume

Smartphone and tablet adoption within small businesses continues to skyrocket, according to AMI Partners. And as those new devices proliferate, cloud-related opportunities also grow for VARs and MSPs serving SMB customers. Here’s why.

AMI says nearly 3.5 million U.S. SMBs currently use smart phones and 700,000 currently use tablet computers. In the next 12 months, AMI estimates that the number of SMBs owning those devices will increase by 40% and 85%, respectively.

AMI astutely points out that the increasing availability of cloud computing is driving mobile technology adoption within SMBs.

Read more [here].

Related articles

• SMB Cloud Spending To Double By 2015 (informationweek.com)
• T-Mobile Revamps Voice/Data Plans for SMBs (phonescoop.com)
• What Type of Cloud is Right for your Small Company? (blogs.cisco.com)
• Managed Service Providers (MSPs) Deem Online Backup Vitally Important (backupify.com)

This post is by Linda Johnson, a partner with CCP Global, which advises Fortune 500 executives on spend management; offers advisory services on supply chain improvement; and helps clients with cost cutting, risk mitigation and compliance, among other services.

Managing all spend is critical to boosting the earnings per share of any company. With 13 years of experience working with companies to reduce spend — including 50 of the Fortune 500 — we know the CFO battles to engage the entire organization in managing spend and to identify financial trends in time to control the impact on the earnings per share.

The advent of cloud computing for business has given the C-suite the opportunity to put true control of company spend in the hands of everyone and to make critical financial decisions with up-to-the-minute data. A few “best in breed” technologies even guarantee financial results.

Read more [here].

Related articles

• 6 Questions CFO’s Should Ask About Cloud Computing (bjconquest.com)
• CFO vs. CIO: Endgame in the Cloud – Technology (bjconquest.com)
• Crossing the Chasm | From Operator to Strategist | CFO Insights | Deloitte (bjconquest.com)
• Are CFO’s running IT? (ericbrown.com)

Related articles

• CIOs Lack Adequate Cloud Computing Knowledge (pcworld.com)
• Regulation, automation, and cloud computing (news.cnet.com)
• CLOUD2 Study Shows How the Feds Can Migrate to Cloud Computing (readwriteweb.com)
• Cloud Computing caught you unaware (businessdms.wordpress.com)